And WHAT a Long Weekend it was...

Its Tuesday, and I'm still in need of sleep from the weekend. Hugh gets back on Friday, so none of these stumble-into-work-with-bleary-eyes-and-jogging-pants mornings. Ah, who am I kidding. That won't stop. But the 3 day benders may be curbed a bit.

Went out for dinner on Friday night (very nice place: Latitude) to celebrate the birthday of a friend (the Neurosurgeon). We then moved from Mimosas and steak to Shooters and 50 at the Phoenix -- a bar catering to young 20-somethings that involves GoGo dancers. Also, $2.50 drinks, and retro music. It really is sad when you realize that "Retro" means that "I was well into High School when these songs came out". Although I was trying to be pseudo-responsible (I had a DATE in the morning with a certain FRUIT STORE -- see below), I did have a few, and wound up finishing the night off pretending to be Michelle's sister Sarah to a couple of complete Mingers. Oh, and we were from Zimbabwe. Oh, and I had to speak with a British accent as I was Michelle's sister. What a couple of tools they were. Got home by 3 though.

Up by 7:30 on Saturday to stand in line for the FIRST CANADIAN APPLE STORE OPENING! Yes, and its only 4 short subway stops away from me at Yorkdale. Met Kevin and Jen (who unfortunately had to leave early) at the Tim Hortons, and headed over to scope out the line. I figured maybe about 50 people would be there an hour before it opened. Boy was I wrong. The line went through the mall and outside...we followed it for several minutes before taking our spots as #468-71 in line. Here's the line ahead of us:



and behind us:



Its nice knowing that there are at least 467 people geekier than we are. Brett also drove up from the Hammer and met us in line with his brother.

After only 2.5 short hours, we found ourselves at the front of the line:



and in we went. It was awesome. I bought some in-ear headphones for my iPod (for posterity's sake really), as did Kevin. We also got our FREE TSHIRTs... only 1500 of which exist in the entire world. Here we are modelling them in front of the store:



Man, what a great day...and it wasn't even noon yet! After bidding adieu to Brett and Adam, we tore downtown to catch the rest of the FA (soccer) match at Skalliwags. Kev and I were trying out our headphones on the subway and apparently made asses of ourselves (I've got a video demonstrating this and will include it when Michelle sticks it up). We got into the pub to find the game in overtime, with a score of 0-0. We didn't even miss a damn thing! Unfortunately for Michelle, Manchester lost. Let me tell you, you haven't lived until you have seen a Brit screaming curses over a hometown Football loss to her parents over the phone. We were happy though because we got free champagne (did I mention it was noon?) We spent the next few hours drowning her sorrows with pints on the patio, however. By 3 (and with very few hours of sleep), I was spent, and had to go home. I was, for all intensive purposes, in bed by 4 in the afternoon that day. Although I did talk to Sandra for a while, and I got a pleasant surprise phone call from Lynne from a patio with one of her friends playing the guitar in the background. It sounded like good times and wished I was there.

I spent Sunday trying to figure out this damn blog site. Ryan got back from his wedding in Gravenhurst at about 4 (after very little sleep himself), thought about napping, didn't, then came with me down to Hemingways to meet some of my friends. Keeping in line with the lucrative weekend, we got there to discover a) free burgers and hot dogs and b) free t-shirts. So even though I did spend a copious amount of money this weekend, it was balanced by a multitude of free stuff. Here's a pic of Ryan with Michelle (left) and Lynfa (right):



Also, one of those pictures where even I can see that we look alike, even if I am 2 sheets to the wind:



Another funny thing: Michelle's Brit friend Chris (who is also a PostDoc BTW) brought his 2 roomates along. One of them sits down, looks at the other end of the table, and says "That's Ryan Anderson". Then he says "He's friends with my sister". It was weird: turns out this guy was my brother's old roommate's brother. He recalled a story where he was sitting around with Ryan in undergrad and someone pulled out a book that my brother loved. Apparently they spent the night reading lines out to Ryan, whereupon Ryan would recite the sentences that followed said passage. Nice. Again, he's the brains in the family.

Poured myself out of bed AGAIN the following morning to make the Ryan dropoff to Mom at Uncle Peter's. The house is almost all packed now: Uncle Peter and family are moving to Qatar in 2 months, and everything is pretty much gone. Was home by 3... again, for all intensive purposes was in bed by 5 that afternoon.

I'm going to start trying to blog more "as things happen" instead of at the end of the weekend, because these make long blogs indeed.